The present invention relates to a safety device for use on the wheels of a vehicle such as a truck trailer, to enable the driver to observe when one or more of the wheels are skidding.
During the operation of large vehicles such as trailer trucks wherein the wheels of the trailer are out of the view of the driver, it may occur, under certain conditions such as wheel bearing freeze-up, over-application of brakes, malfunction of brakes for example, that the rotation of the wheels is prevented, or hindered, whereupon the tires proceed to skid relative to the ground surface. Such an occurrence is potentially dangerous because it may lead to tire blow-outs and/or complete destruction of the tires. Since the wheels and tires are not conveniently visible to the driver, the skidding can easily go undetected until a blow-out occurs. This problem is particularly evident in colder climates where truck brakes can freeze rather rapidly when the truck is at rest.
A previous proposal for dealing with this problem involves the application of painted-on stripes 5 (see FIG. 7) to the tire side wall in an attempt to make it easier for the driver to detect when the tire is not rotating properly. However, such stripes or strips are not readily visible to the driver, especially in the case of tandem trailers, and thus do not significantly enhance the driver's ability to detect a skidding condition.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to minimize or obviate problems of the type discussed above.
Another object is to provide a wheel skid detector which is readily visible to a vehicle driver during day and night conditions.
An additional object is to provide such a detector which is economical to make, easy to attach and remove, and does not contribute to wheel imbalance to an appreciable extent.